James Madio is a Washed-Up Boxer in ‘The Featherweight’ Film Trailer
by Alex Billington
August 8, 2024
Source: YouTube
“Best fighter I ever saw!” Tuckman Media has revealed an official trailer for the film The Featherweight, from filmmaker Robert Kolodny, which first premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival last year. The film is a mockumentary, a fake doc following a boxer as he attempts to make a comeback. Based on the true story of the winningest American boxer in the history of the sport. Set in 1964, a camera crew follows Willie Pep, retired featherweight boxing champion. Down and out in Hartford CT, married to a woman half his age and with a drug-addled son and mounting debts, Pep decides to make a return to the ring. It doesn’t go so well… After its Venice premiere, The Featherweight played festivals around the world, praised for its technical aspects as it recreates the 60s in vivid detail and intersperses staged & archival boxing footage. Starring James Madio as Pep (who trained for months to accurately capture the techniques & movement of Pep), Ruby Wolf, Keir Gilchrist, Stephen Lang, Ron Livingston, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Shari Albert, & boxer Bruce Carrington. The most impressive thing is how the film feels like it’s straight out of the 60s.
Here’s the first official trailer for Robert Kolodny’s film The Featherweight, direct from YouTube:
Set in the mid-1960s in Hartford, Connecticut, The Featherweight presents a gripping chapter in the true-life story of Italian-American boxer Willie Pep (starring James Madio) the winningest fighter of all time—who, down and out in his mid-40s and with his personal life in shambles, decides to make a return to the ring, at which point a documentary camera crew enters his life. Painstakingly researched & constructed, the film is a visceral portrait of the discontents of twentieth-century American masculinity, fame and self-perception. The Featherweight is directed by American indie filmmaker Robert Kolodny, making his first feature film after many other short films and other cinema projects previously. The screenplay is written by Steve Loff. Produced by Bennett Elliott, Robert Greene, Asger Hussain, Brian Liebman, Steve Loff, James Madio, and Abhayanand Singh. This first premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival last year, and played at many other film festivals. Tuckman Media will debut Robert Kolodny’s The Featherweight film in select US theaters starting September 20th, 2024 coming soon this fall. For more info, visit the film’s official site.